Alan Stewart’s UK and Ireland family history news

Dorset parish records go online

22,000 more Dorset baptism, marriage and burial records have been made available online.

The subscription/pay-per-view website Find My Past has added 22,000 baptism, marriage and burial records to its Dorset parish record collection as follows:

12,325 baptism records covering the years 1549 – 1812;

8,368 marriage records covering the years 1560 – 1839;

1,307 burial records covering the years 1651 – 1795.

These records, which have been provided by the Dorset Family History Society, bring the total number of Dorset parish records available at Find My Past up to almost 450,000.

Now that the records are available online, Find My Past has been able to unearth some unusual names in the collection. These include a marriage between Martha Loaring and Samuel Single on 14 October 1750 in Bettiscombe, making Martha a married Single.

The Dorset baptisms also offer some amusing entries, including a record for ‘Love Dear Bedloe’ who was baptised on 27 August 1745 in Dorchester. ‘Fruit Carter’ can also be found in the parish records, baptised on 17 May 1807 in Chickerell.

The Dorset burial records contain a slightly more sinister discovery: an ‘unknown’ person buried on 8 April 1815 in Abbotsbury. The notes state that the unknown person was ‘found on shore’.

Debra Chatfield, Marketing Manager at Find My Past, says, “The Dorset parish record collection is an important resource for family historians with roots in Dorset. While compulsory registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales began in 1837, local parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials exist from as early as 1538. Parish records therefore provide a way for family historians to dig even deeper and trace pre-Victorian ancestors.”